Freemasonry and Science (original) (raw)

"The Operative Freemasons had to know more science than any other men in the Middle Ages; they constructed engines such as elevators, cranes etc., used chemicals in staining of glass, knew mechanics, and had to employ mathematics, geometry especially, at every step in their work. This use of science was as much a part of Freemasonry as was either morality or brotherhood."	[ Illustration notes](../../art/three%5Fvirtues.html)

The Royal Society
In the beginning of Speculative Fraternity under the Grand Lodge system the Freemasons avowed their devotion to the sciences more boldly, and even dramatically. The Royal Society was in the British public mind synonymous with science, and for more than a century it, and its offshoots, were the only exponents and practitioners of science in Britain. It began in 1660 and took its first organized form at a meeting of scholars in Gresham College who had assembled to hear a lecture by Bro. Sir Christopher Wren. Sir Robert Moray was elected its first president, March 6, 1661 A.D.; he was made a Freemason at Newcastle-on-Tyne on May 20, 1641. Dr. Desaguliers, who later became its secretary for a long period of years, was the "father of the Grand Lodge System." and was one of Sir Isaac Newton’s closest friends. A lodge largely composed of Royal Society members met in a room belonging to the Royal Society Club in London. At a time when preachers thundered against these scientists, when newspapers thundered against them, street crowds hooted at them, and neither Oxford nor Cambridge would admit science courses, masonic lodges invited Royal Society members in for lectures, many of which were accompanied by scientific demonstrations.
Haywood, H. L.. Supplement to Mackey’s Encyclopedia of Freemasonry. Macoy Publishing. Richmond, Virginia: 1966. p. 1363.
Ars Quatuor Coronatorum Vol XXI, 1908. p. 233. The London Zoölogical Society
Founded by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, the Society administers the London Zoo and sponsors the Wellcome Institute of Comparative Physiology and the Nuffield Institute of Comparative Medicine. Bro. Raffles (July 5, 1781 - April, 1826), founder of Singapore, was Raised on July 5, 1813 in Lodge De Vriendschap in Sorabaya.